Katherine
A fictionalized account of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt's decades-long love affair through plague, war, and court politics in 14th-century England. Seton writes historical romance with the conviction of biography; the love story is all the more powerful for being grounded in fact. The template for the American historical romance novel.
Seton front-loads the book with court politics and scene-setting, and many readers say the romance itself barely starts until a quarter of the way in. Late in the novel a religious guilt section, some readers clock it near a hundred pages, reads as an abrupt personality reversal rather than anything earned. The narration circles back constantly to how much every man in the room wants Katherine, and one reader describes her as having “no interior or exterior life apart from Gaunt.” Another calls the effect “Purity Sue syndrome,” and a third snaps that she's “nothing but the equivalent of a handbag.” Seton reserves her sympathy almost entirely for the central pair; the discarded wife and the aging former mistress get drawn with contempt instead of complexity, and the stretches of noble lineage and court detail periodically bury the love story they're supposed to serve.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
